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A struggling artist finds a lost angel has crash-landed atop her New York City apartment building, and she must help the angel become mortal or return to heaven before it turns into a daemon

Struggling artist Lucy Bender is at the end of her rope. After being betrayed by both her boyfriend and a jealous rival in the cut-throat art world, she finds herself standing on the roof of her New York apartment, contemplating suicide. Her luck is changed, however, when a misplaced angel named Joth plummets to Earth, landing at her feet. Lucy's first thought is to alert the media, in the form of a sleazy reality TV show. But her dreams of instant fame and fortune are cut short when she discovers she's the only person who can see Joth for what it truly is. Making things even more difficult is the realization that the downed angel is attracting attention from servants of the Infernal Machine, led by the daemon Meresin, who is eager to add Joth to his roster of imps and devils. Lucy is befriended by Ezrael, who was once like Joth and is now a wandering Muse. Ezrael warns her if Joth fails to find its way back to where it came from, it will automatically become a daemon, unless it chooses to become mortal. The only catch is that angels don't have free will. Can Lucy save her fallen angel from falling farther still? And is she willing to knock on heaven's door to do so?

Twenty-two tales of erotic obsession:

• Introduction - essay by T. E. D. Klein
• Lunch at the Gotham Café - novelette by Stephen King
• The Psycho - short story by Michael O'Donoghue
• Pas de Deux - short story by Kathe Koja
• Bright Blades Gleaming - novelette by Basil Copper
• Hanson's Radio - short story by John Lutz
• Refrigerator Heaven - short story by David J. Schow
• Ro Erg - short story by Robert Weinberg
• Going Under - short story by Ramsey Campbell
• Hidden - short story by Stuart M. Kaminsky
• Prism - short story by Wendy Webb
• The Maiden - novelette by Richard Laymon
• You've Got Your Troubles, I've Got Mine... - novelette by Bob Burden
• Waco - short story by George C. Chesbro
• The Penitent - novelette by John Peyton Cooke
• Driven - short story by Kathryn Ptacek
• Barbara - short story by John Shirley
• Hymenoptera - short story by Michael Blumlein
• The End of It All - novelette by Ed Gorman
• Heat - short story by Lucy Taylor
• Thin Walls - short story by Nancy A. Collins
• Locked Away - short story by Karl Edward Wagner
• Loop - novelette by Douglas E. Winter

Twenty-four short stories follow themes of human boundaries pushed to the limits, bringing readers into the lives of men and women who dabble in satanic worship, sexual manipulation, and other dark vices.

• Introduction - essay by Joe Bob Briggs
• Light of Thy Countenance - short story by Alan Moore
• The Contract - short story by Brian Herbert and Marie Landis
• Blood Knot - short story by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Interrogator Frames - short story by Rob Hardin
• The Real World - novelette by Brooks Caruthers
• Choke Hold - short story by Lucy Taylor
• Blackpool Rock - novelette by Philip Nutman
• Forgotten Promises - short story by Edward E. Kramer
• Coming of Age - short story by Douglas Clegg
• High Heels from Hell - short story by Mike Lee
• The Energy Pals - novelette by Howard Kaylan
• The Agony Man - short story by Don Webb
• Brainchild - novelette by Rex Miller
• Furies in Black Leather - short story by Nancy A. Collins
• You Hear What Buddy and Ray Did? - short story by John Shirley
• Playing Dolls - short story by Melissa Mia Hall and Douglas E. Winter
• Facets of Solitaire - novelette by Christopher Golden
• The Picture of Jonathan Collins - short story by Karl Edward Wagner
• Happy Couple - short story by Danielle Willis
• Mysterious Elisions, Riotous Thrusts - short story by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg
• Stations of the Cross - short story by David Aaron Clark

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Dreamclown
• The Freaktent
• Rant
• Iphigenia
• Charity
• Freak Babies
• Speed Freaks with Guns: The Novelization
• Without Sin
• The Tortuga Hill Gang's Last Ride: The True Story
• Binky Malomar and His Amazing Instant Pussy Kit
• Dancing Nitely
• Demonlover
• Easy's Last Stand
• Necrophile
• Aphra
• Such a Good Baby
• Down on Me
• The Killer
• Cancer Alley
• The Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Jaw
• Seven Devils
• How It Was with the Kraits
• Raymond
• The Two-Headed Man
• Afterword by Neil Gaiman

A has-been rock star looks to revive his career and is tricked into helping an evil spirit imprisoned in an abandoned mansion deep in the Louisiana bayous

New Orleans has long been famous for good food, good times, good music--and voodoo. When troubled musician Alex Rossiter relocates to the Big Easy, he soon finds his rock star mojo working again. Not only is his new band attracting notice, he's also having affairs with two gorgeous women: the sexy voodoo queen Ti Alice, and beautiful businesswoman Charlotte "Charlie" Calder. But when Rossiter stumbles across a long-lost book of ancient spells, he unwittingly invites the evil spirit known as Tempter into his dreams--and, soon, his waking hours as well. Tempter is eager to escape his other-dimensional prison so he can once more slake his perverted lusts on the flesh of the living, starting with Charlie. It's up to Jerry Sloan--Rossiter's boyhood friend and Charlie's not-so-secret admirer--and the one-eyed hoodoo woman known as Mad Aggie to stop Tempter's evil plans before he destroys not Charlie but the descendants of the voodoo priestess who imprisoned him over a century ago. Together this unlikely duo must travel to the abandoned plantation deep in Louisiana's haunted bayou country, and face the dark secret that lies waiting for them, locked inside its rotting heart.

Collins' latest is a variation on the western werewolf premise and an extension of themes she has been developing since her debut.

Narrator Billy Skillet is the 150-year-old shapeshifter offspring of a human mother and vargr(werewolf) father. The first half of Billy's tale is a picaresque romp in which the competing demands of his human and feral sides drive him from the west-Texas Comanches among whom he's raised in the mid-19th century into the white man's world, where he works as a saloon attendant, a drummer for a traveling medicine show and a sidekick for a vampire gunslinger

Skinner Cade always felt he wasn't like the others in his small Midwestern town. Violent dreams haunted his sleep and bursts of inexplicable anger flared in his heart. When he discovers that he was adopted, he goes on a search for his birth mother and uncovers a world of savage beasts and blood feuds. There is a wolf in Skinner Cade's heart and it fights to get out - no matter how much blood must be spilled.

Like most Manhattanites, aspiring artist Tate can't resist a good rental deal-even if it's in the city's strangest neighborhood, Golgotham, where for centuries werewolves, centaurs, and countless other creatures have roamed the streets.

Her new landlord is a sorcerer name Hexe, who is determined to build his reputation without using dark, left-hand magic. As Tate is drawn into Hexe's fascinating world, they both find that the right hand does not always know what the left hand is doing-and avoiding darkness is no easy trick...

Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Golgotham has been the city's supernatural neighborhood for centuries. Populated by countless creatures from myth and legend, the neighborhood's most prominent citizens are the Kymera, a race of witches who maintain an uneasy truce with New York City's humans...

Tate Eresby has accepted the unusual sights and sounds of Golgotham and made it her home. Unfortunately, a magazine has alerted trendsetting hipsters to its existence and they've descended upon the community-along with an anti-Kymera faction known as The Sons of Adam. The sudden influx of tourists escalates racial tensions to a boiling point when two Kymerans are murdered and rioting fills the streets.

Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Golgotham has been the city's supernatural district for centuries. Populated by creatures from myth and legend, the neighborhood's most prominent citizens are the Kymera, a race of witches who maintain an uneasy truce with the city's humans...

It has been several months since Tate Eresby developed her new magical ability to bring whatever she creates to life, but she is still learning to control her power. Struggling to make a living as an artist, she and Hexe can barely make ends meet, but they are happy.

That is until Golgotham's criminal overlord Boss Marz is released from prison, bent on revenge against the couple responsible for putting him there. Hexe's right hand is destroyed, leaving him unable to conjure his benign magic. Attempts to repair the hand only succeed in plunging Hexe into a darkness that can't be lifted--even by news that Tate is carrying his child.

Now, with her pregnancy seeming to progress at an astonishing rate, Tate realizes that carrying a possible heir to the Kymeran throne will attract danger from all corners, even beyond the grave...

A debut horror novel featuring a vampire, Sonja Blue, who escapes from a mental hospital leaving a trail of corpses in her wake. As we learn about her early life, we are taken on a nightmarish tour of a world inhabited by other types of non-humans - ogres, zombies and, of course, vampires.

Vampire and vampire-hunter Sonja Blue is back, taking out her rage on the demonic blood-drinkers who hide among the living. But her hunt is attracting attention: Morgan, the monster who remade her twenty years ago, wants to bring his beloved daughter to heel, and Sonja has found her existence entwined with that of a mortal man. Part of her wants to love him, but when dealing with monsters such as she, where does love end and slavery begin? The answer is in the blood.

After decades spent roaming the globe in search of the undead monster who created her, vampire/vampire-hunter Sonja Blue has finally found in the psychic detective Palmer and the unearthly child called Lethe a family she can call her own. But the new world she has created for herself is forever changed by a brief affair in New Orleans that ends in madness and death, and leaves the Other--the murderous, demonic aspect of her fractured personality--stronger than ever. When Sonja receives news that the evil vampire lord Sir Morgan is behind a string of murders of women found wearing sunglasses and leather jackets, she abandons her "family" for New York City. Once she is face-to-face with Morgan, will she finally be able to destroy him once and for all? Or will she succumb to the darkness within her and become his queen?

Nancy Collins' new addition to her vampire books is a complex tale of a female vampire that seems to have a split personality. Sonja Blue's "inner demon" is a vampire that is ruthless and demands human blood and great sacrifice. This personality takes control, and Sonja dreams the events in nightmares that she discovers are real.

When the sun goes down, New York's true elite all head to one place: Bathory Academy, where the young ladies of the finest vampire families are trained in shapeshifting and luring their prey.

Bathory's reigning queen, Lilith Todd, is the daughter of a powerful vampire businessman, and she knows exactly what she wants from life. She wants to look beautiful for eternity and party till the sun comes up with her gorgeous boyfriend, Jules. And she doesn't want any New Blood upstarts standing in her way.

Enter Cally Monture, an unexpected threat from a trash zip code. When their first meeting leads to tragic results, Lilith is hungry for revenge.

Fashion victim just got a whole new meaning.

When vampire heiress Lilith Todd decides she wants a modeling career, she won't let her father stop her--even if he does threaten to cut off her credit cards.

Lilith's rival, Cally Monture, is in a different kind of hot water. Her boyfriend, Peter, is a vampire hunter--a sexy, sensitive soul mate who just happens to be sworn to destroy her entire race.

With the Rauhnacht Grand Ball fast approaching, both girls need the same things: a handsome escort and a dress to die for. But in a sea of shifting and dangerous loyalties, there's no telling who will betray them next.

What good is a designer dress if someone puts a stake through it?

It's the most important event of the season in New York's upper-crust vampire society. The Rauhnacht Grand Ball has everything you need for a night of scandal and intrigue: gala dresses, stolen boyfriends, forbidden love...

Then a team of vampire hunters shows up and ruins everything! The surprise attack by Van Helsings is the worst gate-crashing ever.

In the aftermath, half sisters Lilith and Cally scramble to regain their footing at the exclusive Bathory Academy--and in the world of high fashion, where both have star potential. When new suitors turn the romance up a notch, it's almost enough to make the half sisters forget their intense rivalry. Almost. But shared blood between vampires is not easy, and before long Lilith and Cally find themselves face-to-face again.